Business Process Technology for the Enterprise

1. A system including one or more central processing units (CPUs) for developing and executing a business application without programming and without generating code for any business domain using a visual modeling environment, the business application being developed with a reduced software development life cycle, the system comprising: a. a designer, the designer enabling an application designer to develop the business application without programming, the business application being developed by modeling a plurality of business processes using the visual modeling environment, each of the plurality of business processes comprising a plurality of business tasks, each of the plurality of business tasks being modeled as a plurality of instances of a plurality of prebuilt and reusable abstract business components, the visual modeling environment being used to select the plurality of instances of abstract business components, each of the plurality of abstract business components being a highly abstract object performing a specific function in a generic manner, each of the plurality of abstract business components comprising a plurality of Graphical User Interface (GUI) objects encapsulating application specific parameters, the application specific parameters defining functionality of each of the plurality of abstract business components, the application specific parameters being added to each of the plurality of abstract business components using the plurality of GUI objects to model each of the plurality of business tasks, wherein the selected instances of abstract business components with business process specific run-time properties being connected in a logical order to model each of the plurality of business processes; b. a database, the database being used for storing each of the plurality of business processes as meta-data, one set of the meta-data allows the application designer to provide startup parameters to the plurality of business processes including a unique system-generated parameter identifier, a parameter name, a direction meta-data indicating an incoming or an outgoing parameter, a parameter type, a list meta-data implying the parameter may have any one of values specified in the list meta-data, and a default parameter value; and c. an engine, the engine executing each of the plurality of modeled business tasks associated with each of the plurality of business processes without generating code, the engine being used to concurrently interpret and execute a plurality of requests, the concurrent execution being performed on the plurality of instances of the plurality of abstract business components, the output of the engine being the execution of the business application, wherein the system for developing and executing a business application eliminates the need for a business application developer to have expertise in a formal computer programming language.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the engine comprises: a. a Message Queue, the Message Queue temporarily storing the plurality of requests for executing the business application, summary information for each of the plurality of business tasks and business processes corresponding to the business application, and results obtained by processing of the plurality of requests; b. a Cache Manager, the Cache Manager caching each of the plurality of business processes when each of the plurality of business processes are invoked for first time, and providing each of the plurality of stored business processes for further usage for the application designer; c. an Execution Module, the Execution Module processing the plurality of requests made by the application designer and users of the business application, wherein the Execution Module comprises: i. a component execution module, the component execution module corresponding to each of the plurality of abstract business components, the component execution module being knowledgeable about the functionality of the application specific parameters corresponding to each of the plurality of the abstract business components; ii. a standardized execution module, the standardized execution module accessing the meta-data from the database, the meta-data being a collection of the application specific parameters associated with each of the plurality of abstract business components; and iii. a standardized messaging architecture, the standardized messaging architecture handling communication between a plurality of component execution modules; and d. an Exception Handling Framework, the Exception Handling Framework handling system errors and process-specific errors by using error types and error objects, the system errors occur during processing of the plurality of requests and the process-specific errors being stored as data for implementation by the application designer.

3. The system according to claim 1 further comprising: a. an Administration Tool, the Administration Tool enabling an administrator to perform administrative functions, the administrative functions comprising security management, log files maintenance, analyzing statistics related to each of the plurality of business processes and business tasks, and configuring settings of the engine; b. a Web Server, the Web Server running a Controller Servlet, the Controller Servlet being a program connecting the engine with the designer and the Administration Tool, and providing compatibility between the engine, the designer and the Administration Tool; c. a Designer Server, the Designer Server facilitating interfaces between the designer, the Administration Tool and the database; and d. a Desktop Integration Server, the Desktop Integration Server providing integration of the engine with a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email server, a fax server and a printer, the Desktop Integration Server comprising a document generator, the document generator generating documents as per the requirement of the engine.

4. The system according to claim 1 further comprising a version management system, the version management system enabling users to store, track and view history of various versions of each of the plurality of abstract business components.

5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the system enables the application designer to integrate a new component in the system, the new component is at least one of a shell script, an executable file, a database procedure, and an abstract business component.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the designer comprises a verifier, the verifier being used for testing, validating and debugging each of the plurality of modeled business processes using the visual modeling environment by applying a set of pre-defined verifications to each of the plurality of modeled business processes, the verifier enabling the application designer to step through each task in each of the plurality of business processes and verify each task, and to set breakpoints and watch variables for testing each of the plurality of business processes.

7. A method for developing and executing a business application without programming and without generating code for any business domain using a visual modeling environment, the business application is developed with a reduced software development life cycle, the method executed by a Central Processing Unit (CPU) comprising the steps of: a. identifying the business requirements of the business application as a plurality of business processes; b. enabling an application designer to develop the business application without programming, the business application being developed by modeling each of the plurality of business processes using the visual modeling environment, each of the plurality of business processes comprising a plurality of business tasks, each of the plurality of business tasks being modeled as a plurality of instances of a plurality of prebuilt and reusable abstract business components, the visual modeling environment being used to select the plurality of instances of abstract business components, each of the plurality of abstract business components being a highly abstract object performing a specific function in a generic manner, each of the plurality of abstract business components comprising a plurality of Graphical User Interface (GUI) objects encapsulating application specific parameters, the application specific parameters defining functionality of each of the plurality of abstract business components, the application specific parameters being added to each of the plurality of abstract business components using the plurality of GUI objects to model each of the plurality of business tasks, wherein the selected instances of abstract business components with business process specific run-time properties being connected in a logical order to model each of the plurality of business processes; c. storing each of the plurality of business processes as meta-data, one set of the meta-data allows the application designer to provide startup parameters to the plurality of business processes including a unique system-generated parameter identifier, a parameter name, a direction meta-data indicating an incoming or an outgoing parameter, a parameter type, a list meta-data implying the parameter may have any one of values specified in the list meta-data, and a default parameter value; and d. executing each of the plurality of modeled business tasks associated with each of the plurality of business processes by an engine without generating code to execute the business application, the engine performing concurrent interpretation, and execution of a plurality of requests, the concurrent execution being performed on the plurality of instances of the plurality of abstract business components, wherein the method for developing and executing a business application eliminates the need for a business application developer to have an expertise in a formal computer programming language.

8. The method according to claim 7 further comprising a method for enabling users to execute the business application, the method comprising the steps of: a. inputting a request to execute the business application by the users; b. identifying each of the plurality of business processes comprising each of the plurality of business tasks and the application specific parameters corresponding to the business application; c. caching each of the plurality of business processes related to the business application; d. executing each of the plurality of business processes and business tasks in the logical order as defined by the visual modeling environment; e. handling an error that occurs while processing the request, the error occurs in any of the above steps; f. logging information related to execution of each of the plurality of business tasks; and g. outputting results of the execution for further processing.

9. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the method is carried out by a computer program.

10. The method according to claim 7 further comprising performing testing, validating and debugging of each of the plurality of modeled business processes using the visual modeling environment by applying a set of pre-defined verifications to each of the plurality of modeled business processes, and enabling the application designer to step through each task in each of the plurality of business processes and verify each task, and to set breakpoints and watch variables for testing each of the plurality of business processes.

11. The method according to claim 10 further comprising observing values of the watch variables while executing each of the plurality of modeled business processes and analyzing the information related to each of the plurality of modeled business processes at each of the breakpoints.